689

GORBACHEV AS DRAMA-T-URGE
Lessons on social transformation
for international organizations
Anthony J. N. Judge
This article explores the dramatic dimensions of Gorbachevs actions as a
source of lessons on social transformation in the future. It is argued that
transformative moments in society result from the identification of
people with an evolving drama. These may then lead to real change of
lasting significance, beyond what is normally achieved by international
organization programmes. Questions are raised about the extent to
which such dramatization is already used and the opportunities for using
it to a far greater extent in the future, whether for good or for ill. The
link between such drama and the use of metaphor is explored in relation
to world governance.
It is a sad truth that international organizations are often the last to
implement within their own operations and programmes the techniques of
social transformation which they advocate or which are explored by others.
It is sadder still that such organizations often aspire to function as pale
imitations of bodies like the United Nations, themselves faced with severe
problems of sclerotic structure and the thinking that reinforces it. This is
most clearly symbolized by the limited (and increasingly sterile) vocabulary
used to describe the majority of international organizational structures-
general assembly, conference, committee, programme, project and the like.
More obvious, perhaps, is the reflection of such thinking in the limited
diversity of forms of international meetings.
It is no wonder then that there is an increasing loss of credibility of
international bodies, with a corresponding lowering of expectations on the
part of those sensitive to the unlearnt lessons of the past. Unfortunately, for
those unaware of those lessons, expectations easily become inflated,
spurred on by a healthy natural enthusiasm for new opportunities. The 1992
The author is with the Union of International Associations, 40 rue Washington, B-1050 Brussels,
Belgium (Tel: 32 2 640 4109). Fax: 32 2 646 05 25). The article is based on a paper prepared for
the 12th Conference of the World Futures Studies Federation (Barcelona, 1991).
FUTURES September 1992 0016-3287/07689-12 @ 1992 Butterworth-Heinemann Ltd
690 Gorbachev as dramaturge
UNCED Earth Summit is one such example, readily exploited by factional
interests under the guise of remedial initiatives for planetary ills.
learning from the Eastern European surprise
It is within this context that we can marvel at the real changes in Eastern
Europe and the USSR, and especially at what is to be learnt from the actions
of Mikhail Gorbachev in facilitating these changes. What are the lessons for
world governance, for international programmes, and for social transforma-
tion by international organizations?
It seems quite apparent that no international organization contributed
any insight, scenarios or models to facilitate such changes. None has been
mentioned in this respect. At best it can be said that many organizations
provided contexts in which interaction between representatives of Eastern
and Western bloc countries occurred. No discipline is cited as having made
a significant contribution to the change-although some are obliged to
make that claim. International organizations and disciplines remain embar-
rassed, many months after the events, by their inability to respond creatively
to the changes in Eastern Europe. In the midst of waning euphoria and
rising doubts, the level of disappointment at the inadequacy and irrelevance
of Western thinking is yet to be fully acknowledged. Western imposition of
ever more stringent conditions, is a poor and dangerous substitute for
proactive responses.
Social transformation as participative drama
The key event in the final breakthrough in Eastern Europe was the reaction-
ary coup against Gorbachev and the response to it. The word most
frequently used in relation to these events is dramatic. After many other
explanations from which relatively few lessons have been learnt, it is
therefore worth exploring social transformation as a dramatic process in
which dramatic moments are themselves catalysts of transformation.
The question to be asked is whether the sterile vocabulary of participat-
ive democracy is appropriate to a period during which voter apathy is
significantly increasing, most notably in the Western democracies, and
especially among the young. Specifically, is it participative democracy which
leads to sustainable social transformation? The words and structures used
do indeed reflect understanding of the need for change. But can it not be
argued that the most significant current product of participative democracy
is heightened levels of tokenism and lip-service in all its forms-notably in
international organizations ? The plethora of unimplemented, and quickly
forgotten, resolutions (over which large conferences agonize at great ex-
pense for long periods of time) is a prime illustration. The extent to which
governmental bodies, and others, renege on solemn commitments, often by
watering down their interpretation, is another.
It is therefore worth exploring the dimensions of a new world order
based on participative drama as the key to sustainable social transforma-
tion. This is a step beyond what is now widely accepted as news manage-
ment, although it was Richard Nixon who was the first to establish an Office
FUTURES September 1992
Gorbachev as dramaturge 691
of Communications devoted to managing executive imagery with a specific
focus on the line-of-the-day and the image-of-the-day.
At the highest level, there is already continual scripting of media
photo-opportunities, where scenarios are prepared down to the minutest
detail, and much effort is made in casting people for roles. There is now a
seamless loop of theme-orchestration, sound-biting, leaking, polling and
opinion-making, all feeding into policy formulation.7
Because of its very nature, the degree of media management may never
become clear. One striking example is the recent revelation that General
Schwartzkofs much publicized announcements during Operation Desert
Storm concerning the destruction of Scud missiles and their launching sites
were largely fabricated. US forces did not destroy a single mobile launcher
during the Gulf War. 2 But is that really relevant when he gripped peoples
imagination by putting on such a good show?
To what extent has such thinking sustained the kinds of participative
drama which triggered the changes in Eastern Europe? And what do such
dramas mean for democratic processes?
Beyond cause-and-effect explanations: aesthetic participation
Is it really useful to attempt to arrive at the truth of whether Gorbachev
masterminded the social transformations which his actions appear to have
facilitated? The attempt raises questions as to whether he was a part of
some more or less enlightened conspiracy, a victim of events, a puppet,
unable to control what he set in motion-and whether he became a
has-been and a loser through the process. The social transformation process
is however to be valued whether he controlled events or was controlled by
them.
Much more interesting is to shift the perspective and explore the
lessons of Gorbachev as a dramaturge, however conscious he was of the
changes he was setting in motion and whatever his degree of personal
interest in emerging as a winner according to the conventional criteria of
the political arena. Hans Magnus Enzensburger has, according to John
Berger,3 named Gorbachev as a genius of withdrawal, the great master of
retreat.
From this perspective it is much less relevant how consciously he
controlled events. Of far greater relevance is the aesthetics of the drama
and, above all, the level and kind of participation that it engendered and
focused. It can be readily argued that it was the final drama of the coup and
counter-coup which unleashed the full force of social transformation. Can
the programme of any democratically participative international organization
focus involvement to achieve such levels of social transformation? And how
are the aesthetics of the drama to be related to the assessment of the
transformation as beneficial or not?
From an aesthetic perspective it is irrelevant what personal problems a
playwright has in mastering his material. Any personal tragedy suffered by
the playwright only serves to increase the poignancy of the drama. The
playwright may both manipulate his material, and be possessed by it. The
playwright experiences a highly personal drama in relation to the material,
FUTURES September 1992
692 Gorbachev as dramaturge
through which his or her personal transformation may occur, leading
possibly to greater levels of insight and understanding. It is then inappropri-
ate to focus on whether the playwright won or lost-losing may be the only
route through which a really great play takes form. There is a truth in the
superstitious recognition that a playwright must lose something in payment
to the gods for the success of the play.
Gorbachev was a successful change agent precisely because he held to
his belief in the possibility of reforming the Communist Party, and so
convinced his comrades, identifying thus with elements of the unfolding
drama. But as John Berger put it in a remarkable article:
He failed to imagine only one thing: that due to all the other changes hed brought
about or stage-managed, the CPSIJ would overnight be declared illegal. At the end
of the third week of August, he turns to the audience, which is a world set free, and
at the same time finds himself empty-handed.4
Gorbachev appeared to experience a series of major personal dramas-
people identified with the betrayals to which he was exposed, whether real
or imagined. Is it useful to seek some explanation of a long-term policy
based on linear thinking by which his performance should be evaluated for
consistency?
Human sacrifice and social transformation
From this perspective, it is valuable to review social change in the light of
the drama of human sacrifice. It can be argued that nearly all legislative
innovations have only been brought about following an appropriate level of
human sacrifice. This is true whether the legislation concerns the safety of
childrens toys, mercury pollution, or the independence of a country. To
put it bluntly, children have to be sacrificed before it is accepted that safety
regulations on childrens toys should be formulated. (It would not be
impossible to count the number of such sacrifices associated with each
piece of social change legislation.) Leadership too may call for personal
sacrifice. How can we ever know what Gorbachev, or his colleagues,
sacrificed-whether or not they originally intended to do so in the way in
which they appeared to do so.
It is only of incidental interest to know whether the Soviet Emergency
Committee of eight were willing or conscious participants in the drama, or
how conscious Gorbachev was in placing them in positions from which they
could instigate the coup. It is they who provided a dramatic focus for the
reactionary forces. They were turned into scapegoats who could be sacri-
ficed, thus liberating others from the thrall of the repressive mode of
thinking. The three young men who were sacrificed (or who chose to
sacrifice themselves) in the defence against army tanks were of dramatic
significance in bringing about a realignment of the military forces-perhaps
only to be matched in that period by the lone individual who, in a
much-publicized video sequence, disrupted the movement of a column of
tanks in Beijing in 1989. Indeed it is possible to argue that it was the human
sacrifice in Tianenmen Square which effectively set the stage for the manner
in which the drama was able to unfold in Eastern Europe.
FUTURES September 1992
Gorbachev as dramaturge 693
Dramatic cover-ups in international organizations
How does this perspective relate to the structures and policies of interna-
tional organizations ? It might first be asked whether official attempts to
suppress the dramatic dimensions of factional infighting are precisely what
makes the activities of international organizations so boring and irrelevant to
the wider world.
There are truths to be learnt from the media focus on the scandals of
the United Nations and its agencies, 5 their development programmes,j and
on the naked ambition of those who aspire to their highest offices as feudal
fiefdoms-with some even obliging their subordinates to address them as
Excellency. Until such all-too-human dramas capture peoples imaginations
(as in the BBCs Yes, Minister series), there is little hope of understanding
what really needs to be restructured in international organizations in order
to move towards a more enlightened form of world governance.
Within the dramatic metaphor, what then is to be made of an interna-
tional conference panel session aligned on a podium in a manner that bears
a remarkable structural similarity to the widely publicized Soviet Emergency
Committee press conference-especially when the subject is the future of
democratic processes? Does this alignment comfort the political reactionary
in each of us?
It is frequently assumed that conference sessions involve a high degree
of spontaneity. In fact most conference sessions are heavily pre-scripted
with the roles cast long in advance. Good conference organization tends to
imply a high degree of control over the scenario as it takes form. Why not
then structure the conference as an enthralling drama-at least to some
degree? And to what extent is this already done? Opposing viewpoints
could then interplay more effectively to draw the participants into a more
profound appreciation of the dynamics-touching the emotions as well as
the intellect. Was this not one purpose of classical Greek drama? There is
merit in exploring the marriage of what conventionally occurs on a confer-
ence podium with the dynamics of actors interacting on a stage. Is there not
something rather quaint in the efforts to capture a conference on still
photographs, press communiques and in minutes, at a time when reality is
being redefined and understood through video-clips and CNN-style presen-
tations?
Participation in dramatized realities
Is it important to the outcome whether Gorbachev was really (a) isolated
under house arrest, or (b) whether he allowed it to appear so? The
limitations of Western either/or logic may be preventing us from recogniz-
ing the two other possibilities accepted in Buddhist and Japanese logic.
These would point to situations in which (c) both a and b are correct, and
(d) neither a nor b are correct. These capture some of the perceptions
voiced by Shevardnadze on the matter.
In a period when politicians can be destroyed by reports (whether false
or not) on their association with call girls, at what point will it become
useful to stage dramas to position a politician for electoral purposes-
whether or not some people have to be sacrificed to achieve credibility?
FUTURES September 1992
694 Gorbachev as dramaturge
Already the status symbols of a plethora of bodyguards and security controls
may be used to good effect as a happening, even in the absence of any
commensurate threat. In the light of the assassination attempt on Ronald
Reagan (or on the current Pope), what level of organization would be
required to emulate such drama to focus public interest in support of a
lacklustre presidential candidate? Are the flesh wounds needed for credibil-
ity too high a price for the candidate to pay to achieve the highest office?
And how easy it would be to diminish an opponent by implicating one of
his former supporters as the assassin. How should the distinction be made
between dirty tricks and good dramatic effects?
Has it not already become convenient to stage kidnappings, attempted
assassinations and other happenings to capture media headlines and make a
strong political point. 7 Is it any longer possible to distinguish through the
media between a bomb planted by terrorists and one planted by establish-
ment groups (and attributed to terrorists) in order to position repressive
policies more effectively? Is it useful to attempt to distinguish between Boris
Yeltsin as the political genius in shaking the tank drivers hand (prior to
using the tank as a podium), and as the dramatic genius who seized that
opportunity, whether or not it was deliberately staged?
Such possibilities will naturally be skilfully exploited by the self-seeking
to great effect. Beyond traditional image building, they offer a prime
strategy for the next presidential election in the USA-especially since the
intrinsic drama of political conventions has been lost forever. Substantive
issues in isolation only attract factional interest. It is the dramatic interweav-
ing of these issues as the backdrop to a comprehensible scenario, casting
the candidate in a dramatic or heroic role, which enables individual voters
to buy into the vision the candidates party endeavours to sell. The
challenge is an aesthetic one with aesthetic risks. For the drama can fail on
aesthetic grounds and be perceived as a farce-politicians can also be bad
actors.
Dramatizing international organizations
The question for international organizations is whether this is a route to be
followed. Is the aesthetic condemnation of such organizations as providing
bad drama in monotonous conferences compensated by the social change
that they do indeed make possible at their own pace-even though the
boring nature of the drama they provide reduces the credibility of their
initiatives?
Can we possibly expect those who seek office in intergovernmental
organizations to be capable of taking their audience through the kind of
transformative process that Gorbachev (stage-)managed-by accepting vari-
ous forms of personal sacrifice 3 Clearly a key post in this respect is that of
Secretary-General of the United Nations. Such sacrifice seems unlikely in a
period when the candidates were selected for quite different reasons.
Perhaps more should be made of the possibility of dramatizing such
environments along classical imperial lines, recognizing the reality of baron-
ies and dukedoms and all the social drama with which they are associated.
The United Nations might capture public excitement far more effectively if
its function as an imperial court was highlighted. How different to the
FUTURES September 1992
Gorbachev as dramaturge 695
popular imagination is the EC institutional system compared to the court of
Louis XIV-both with their courtiers and courtesans, and with pomp and
ceremony? Is it not intriguing that a number of key international bodies now
find it appropriate to attribute prizes and honours along imperial lines?
Greenpeace is the organization which has moved furthest in this
direction and with greatest success in seeking positive social change-the
Rainbow Warrior incident could not have been better designed (again,
whether or not this was the case). According to Medecins sans Frontieres,
Oxfam stage-managed a famine in Cambodia in 1986 to force the hand of
donors. Through such initiatives people are drawn into participative scen-
arios with which they can identify. It is through this identification and its
exposure to the dynamics of the drama that orientations are shifted. This
can have dramatic political consequences for good or ill-however these
can then be distinguished in that context.
Escaping from metaphoric traps
The problem would appear to be that international organizations tend to get
trapped in metaphors which may be adequate for their survival but are not
however adequate for their sustainable development as learning organiza-
tions-or for their contribution to the sustainable development of a complex
planetary society. Worse still, George Lakoff argued that metaphors can kill
and that metaphorical thought played a central role in providing justifica-
tions for the Gulf War.8
The focus needs to be taken off tinkering with the structuring and
restructuring of organizations. This is only stimulating to the few, and often
for quite inappropriate reasons. Such restructuring may be perceived as
offering a tinker-toy understanding of organizations through metaphors of
structures of connected boxes (reinforced by organization charts) or as
mechanical devices. Radical restructuring is then perceived as moving the
boxes and connectors into a different pattern. This is ideal for creating the
impression of change within the current fashion for tokenism. Unfortunately
such changes have little real impact on the erosion of the credibility of such
bodies-and are increasingly viewed with a cynical eye as just another
consultants dream.
There is an alienating sameness to the democratic procedures of
international organizations. These are typified by procedural manoeuvring,
lobbying and electoral manipulation, that provide a stage on which the
ambitious are anxious to strut. This is a fundamental problem with actors in
both the political and dramatic arenas.
Both in politics and drama, power is an illusion. As Dorothy Rowe
states:
Power is an illusion because it is no more than a meaning which the powerful have
created and which the powerless accept as reality. . . Seeing power as a game means
knowing that power is a construction, a fiction, for the rules which make up any
game are fictions: but there are many people who take game-playing as seriously as
those who regard their political creed or their religious beliefs as the Absolute
Truth. . . The illusion of power is maintained by unawareness and silence.9
There is increasing recognition that the dominant institutions, whether
governmental or intergovernmental organizations, only continue to function
FUTURES September 1992
696 Gorbachev as dramaturge
due to the conspiracy of silence. Like the Emperor in the classic tale, they
have in fact no clothes. From this perspective, is the international commun-
ity to be compared to a fashion conscious nudist colony?
Dorothy Rowe argues that the aim of political rhetoric is to influence
the audience so as
. . . to prevent us from finding alternative ways of constructing our reality, and the
language it uses is intended to obscure not to clarify. It relies on metaphors which
are presented as accurate descriptions and give to its believers an illusion of power
which they can express in the rhetorical language which they have learned. The
metaphors used by the State in rhetoric may have been used initially as no more
than vivid pictures, understandable by and appealing to their audience, but when
these metaphors harden into dogma they become the means by which reality is
perceived and responded to, and they become part of the network of causes.. So
often what appears to be political revolution or an individual conversion is in effect
no change, the titles given to the authority and the followers may have changed, but
the relationships and the metaphors to describe these relationships have not
changed.10
As Rowe states: The problem for all practitioners in the media is how much
in their rhetoric they will present the structure of meaning which the State,
the Church, and the international financial institutions want to be presented
as absolute reality, and how much they will present alternative structures of
meaning.l
In search of guiding metaphors
It is not however a question of escaping from all use of metaphor.
Metaphors remain a major unexplored device for redefining alternative
realities and facilitating participative identification with them.12 Other meta-
phors, notably the dramatic one, need to be given greater attention as a
means of ensuring new and more meaningful forms of involvement in
collective initiatives.
It is a question of shifting from a reliance on fixed (and progressively
alienating) organizational structures to participative scenarios, and from bad
drama to drama of the highest kind. For it is precisely the dramatic form
which can more adequately capture and recontextualize the factional con-
flicts which reflect the levels of complexity with which society has to deal.
The assumption that consensus procedures can be found to encompass this
complexity is both naive and totally vulnerable to tokenism. Consensus
procedures tend to give rise to the most boring forms of drama.
This suggests that the key to the future lies in the imaginative way in
which essentially incommensurable policies (and the factions promoting
them) are interwoven. The point is made by the unpreparedness of the
international community in response to the desperate need of the ex-social-
ist countries for some way of blending command and market economies. As
emerged so clearly at the Beijing World Futures Studies Federation Confer-
ence, no models are available precisely because the challenge to the
imagination transcends the world of model building by which futures
studies has been so heavily influenced. This suggests that exciting opportun-
ities for international organizations exist beyond the policy incompatibilities
within which they become entrapped.
FUTURES September 1992
Gorbachev as dramaturge 697
World governance and imagination building
World governance in the above sense is then a question of imagination
building rather than of institution building. The role of international bodies
concerned with policy making should be to focus attention on the emerg-
ence and movement of policy-relevant metaphors that are capable of
rendering comprehensible the way forward through complex windows of
opportunity. The transformation of Eastern Europe illustrates the role of
drama in focusing participative understanding of rightness and appropriate-
ness to create a transformative moment during which real change actually
occurs.
To sustain such development, the challenge lies in marrying new
metaphors to models to ensure the embodiment of new levels of insight in
organizational form. In this sense the United Nations could become a kind
of caretaker for the metaphoric gene-pool on which the international
community can draw in formulating responses to new crises. In effect this is
one of the functions that it already performs-but unfortunately it does it
badly by reinforcing the many outdated metaphors underlying the program-
mes of its various specialized agencies.
This vision of world governance does not call for a radical transforma-
tion of institutions-which is unlikely before the next major catastrophe.
Rather it calls for a shift in the way of thinking about what is circulated
through societys information systems as the triggering force for any
action.
At present, governance in the international community is haunted by a
form of collective schizophrenia-a left-brain preoccupation with serious
academic models and administrative programmes, and a right-brain preoccu-
pation with the proclivities of public opinion avid for meaningful action
(even if sensational). Hence the fascination with the drama of Operation
Desert Storm which combined both in a dramatic, and deliberately dramat-
ized, scenario.
Towards higher orders of consensus: the crop rotation metaphor
A number of rich metaphors can assist in this shift in perspective. In earlier
papers the merits of ecological, traffic, and resonance hybrid metaphors
have been highlighted .I3 But their power and relevance to policy making
may be best illustrated by crop rotation-a process intimately known to
peasant farmers around the world.
The farmer knows that, to ensure sustainable development of his field,
he can grow one crop in that field for a period but must then replace it by a
different crop to remedy the degradation of the soil caused by the first. He
may have to grow a third and a fourth species before finally returning to the
first again in his crop rotation cycle. It is the cycle which guarantees
sustainability, not any particular crop.
Is it not also correct that, to ensure sustainable development, policies
need to be alternated like crops to correct for each others damaging effects
on society and the environment? This is the implicit message of democracy.
However, no political party or faction would accept the need to sacrifice a
cherished policy as part of such a process or to relinquish power to allow
FUTURES September 1992
698 Gorbachev as dramaturge
alternative parties to perform their function in any such cycle. But the
distinct policies of appropriately opposed parties do succeed each other in a
kind of chaotic cycle as each endeavours to articulate and respond to the
defects in its predecessors initiatives. It remains to be seen whether such
chaotic cycles provide the sustainability required through the crises to
come.
lmagi~ative weapons of the future: binary metaphoric dramas?
For a country of chess players, the obvious, first-order strategies would not
be considered a key to success by its elites. Political success in the social
systems of the future may be better understood by speculating on other
possibilities in the relationship between Gorbachev and Yeltsin. Consider
the possibility of collusion between them through which they agreed to take
on alternately the roles of political heavy and democratic saviour-cor-
responding to the bad guy/good guy interrogation strategy through a
planned sequence of phases.
Change is then effected by outmanoeuvring factions locked in out-
moded forms of thinking, whether reactionary or idealistic. The art would
be to ensure that such factions identified with actors opposed in the
drama-Gorbachev or Yeltsin in this case. It is the phases in the dramatic
relationship between the actors which transforms the system by reframing
the context. In this sense two political forces can be used in ways similar to
binary chemical weapons (in which two innocuous components are lethal
when appropriately combined). Even subtler strategies might be designed
through phasing the combination of three or more such elements over time.
Would it be possible to learn from the sense of configuration and timing of
a team of confidence tricksters in order to design transformative moments
through which outmoded forms and factional thinking are bypassed-as
some Sufi teachings imply. Maybe society could be tricked into some more
sustainable mode.
In a perceptive article, 7J Norman Myers sees this kind of thinking as
vital to prepare for the unforeseen problems of the future, the unknown
unknowns which are waiting in the wings to leap out at us. His concern is
with environmental synergisms, namely the interaction of natural processes
so that the product of their effects is greater than the sum of their separate
effects. He regrets that little is known about them. The same may be said of
social synergisms, especially when they take the form of synergistic social
strategies as envisaged above, whether for good or for ill.
Beyond winning and losing
To focus on whether Gorbachev lost or Yeltsin won, then, completely
misses the strategic point. Such a focus might be compared to media
preoccupation with the result of a particular fight in televised professional
wrestling, where the outcome of a sequence of fights may in fact be fixed
by contract between the opponents.
It is through indifference to being cast in a winning or losing role that
the key actors together achieve a larger objective. The opportunities for
collusion between apparent opponents in the political arena need to be
FUTURES September 1992
Gorbachev as dramaturge 699
seen in this light. The question is whether this can be used to effect valued
social transformation-and whether it is not already being used to inhibit
such transformation, as some studies imply.15
A major reason for exploring this metaphoric dimension is that society
is highly vulnerable to good drama, whatever the morality or principles that
it implies. Is it not reasonable that the bad drama furnished by annual
General Assemblies (and notably those of the United Nations) should run
the risk of being upstaged by other dramas (such as the hostage drama) of
little social merit? The initiative will always tend to be with those who can
furnish good drama-as Goebbels knew so well!
Much drama, and especially comedy, is built around the dynamic
relation between information and disinformation. Jacques Attali, now Presid-
ent of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, has argued
that the criterion for truth in the media-permeated society of the future will
be primarily aesthetic, if not seductive? As is shown in a recent study of
the USSR during the period of critical social transformation,l a striking fact
is the fascination of people with the uncontrolled mass media, having had
hardly any contact with free speech or the idea of open discussion. For
truths to have any hope of evoking responses to the issues of sustainable
development, they will therefore need to be seductive-and participative
drama with which people can identify is one way of achieving this.
The lessons of social transformation in Eastern Europe raise questions
about the appropriateness of the metaphors through which social transfor-
mation is envisaged. Maybe politicians and change agents of the future
should not only seek advice on how to dress and act in front of the camera
during photo-opportunities, but also on crafting the dramatic opportunities
through which they can be repositioned. Politicians and their public rela-
tions advisors may benefit from attending drama courses. But people have
seen a great deal of televised drama, so it is going to have to be both
realistic and good.
Notes and references
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
John A. Maltese, Spin Control: the White House Office of Communication and the
Management of Presidential News (Chapel Hill, NC, University of North Carolina Press,
1992).
international Hera/d Tribune, 25 June 1992.
John Berger, Russia in the thrall of a new icon, The Guardian International, 4 September
1991.
Ibid.
Shirley Hazzard, Countenance of Truth: the United Nations and the Waldheim Case (New
York, Viking Penguin, 1991).
Graham Hancock, Lords of Poverty (London, Macmillan, 1989).
international Herald Tribune, 7 July 1992.
George Lakoff, Reflections on the imminence of war in the Gulf, Berkeley, CA, University
of California, December 1990 (circulated by e-mail).
Dorothy Rowe, Wanting Everything (London, Harper Collins, 1991).
Ibid.
Ibid.
A. J. N. Judge, Metaphoric revolution: in quest of a manifesto for governance through
metaphor, in E. Masini, J. Dator and S. Rogers (editors), The Futures of Development:
Selections from the Tenth World Conference of the World Futures Studies Federation
(Paris, UNESCO, FOS, 1991); A. J. N. Judge, Through metaphor to sustainable ecologies of
development policies, in llze Gotelli and Th. Trzyna (editors), The Power of Convening:
Collaborative Policy Forums for Sustainable Development (Sacramento, CA, California
FUTURES September 1992
700 Gorbachev as dramaturge
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
Institute of Public Affairs, 1990), pages 64-81; A. J. N. Judge, Recontextualizing social
problems through metaphor: transcending the switch metaphor, Tramnational Associ-
ations, 43(l), 1991, pages 37-46; A. J. N. Judge, The aesthetics of governance . . in the
year 2491, (paper for the 11th World Conference of WFSF, Budapest, 1990), Futures, 23(4),
hay 1991, pages 426-436; Union of International Associations, Fncyc/opedia of Worki
Problems and Human Potential (Munchen, K. G. Saur Verlag, 1990), section MM: Meta-
phors and Patterns, bibl.
/bid; and Judge, op tit, reference 12.
Norman Myers, in The Guardian International, 24 July 1992.
Roger Bartra, The /maginary Networks of Political Power (New Brunswick, NJ, Rutgers
University Press, 1992).
Jacques Attali, Les trois mondes: pour une thkorie de /apr& crise (Paris, Fayard, 1981).
Steve Crawshaw, Goodbye to the USSR: The Collapse of Soviet Power (London, Blooms-
bury, 1992).
FUTURES September 1992